I’d have wanted to crawl — to wind down
windows, witness every dirt tread
caress oilslick macadam, inhale
the black — if I were him. But I am
still a back-seat driver and here
see his callow form before headlights,
slant rain in darkness, digging
this for us. The hands that will hold
our bodies swell and burn, calloused.
Behind the wheel now, crack’d leather old,
king of his road still
he feels, perhaps, a pulse steal the arc
of his spine. An arcane twitch of muscle memory.
The weight of young passengers.
An insight of speed, time blurs to tail-lights.